Modern community centre puts morans in touch with the world

She said that through the centre, AfriAfya planned to reach out to the community and pass on a wide variety of relevant health and other development information.

Dr Koki said that apart from increasing the proportion of youth and children in schools with knowledge and skills on use of ICT, they also intended to increase knowledge on and the practice of disease prevention and control among community members.

The NGO has 33 such resource centres spread all over Kenya. Sekenani centre has 15 computers which are run by six solar panels and four batteries that were provided by Cisco in a project that cost over Sh3 million.

The Cisco Networking Academy for North and East Africa manager Hital Muraj said the firm took pride in assisting local communities and would continue supporting access to ICT as a way of empowering people.

ICT centres

Ms Muraj said the company had launched a community social responsibility programme worth Sh10million to support existing ICT centres and start other new projects.

“We have been involved in community computer centres in Karachuonyo, Sega, Sekenani, Narok, Tseikuru in Mwingi, Kisii, and Shimba hills in Taita Taveta,” said Ms Muraj.

Such community projects have impacted positively on communities with many youths acquiring computer knowledge.

In Siaya, for instance, a similar project dubbed Sega Silicon Valley (SSV) that was started four years ago plans to start outsourcing jobs from the United States through Sama Source, a US company.

According SSV founder James Ofwona, the intention of founding the centre was to enable the youth to access computer knowledge which is vital for the prosperity of the society and nation.

“In the near future, we will have young men and women doing jobs with US companies from here. We will have reduced joblessness albeit in a small way,” said Mr Ofwona in a previous interview.